African History

'It is a glorious book: an education and an invitation. There is such life in its pages, and such food!' Nigella Lawson A culinary expedition celebrating cooking from across the...

'A historically insightful read' Financial Times 'A wry, rollicking, and provocative history' Michael Taylor, author of The Interest 'A thought-provoking analysis of Africa's relationship with economic imperialism' Astrid Madimba and...

ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING FINALIST 2026 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING 'A tale of rapacious colonialism, Cold War spy games, dazzling technical innovation, big...

The funniest book about anthropology that has ever been written. A modern classic to interest and delight all ages. Although set amongst a little-known tribe in the Cameroons, this slim...

Welcome to Paradise opens a window into the hearts of a small group of African would-be emigrants, waiting on the beach in Morocco for a boat that will take them...

A fascinating dive into the overlooked fight between the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force and the Ottoman Empire for control of the Suez Canal. The Battle of Romani was fought...

Set in the medieval city of Marrakesh and the majestic kasbahs of the High Atlas mountains, Lords of the Atlas tells the extraordinary story of the Madani and T'hami el...

In a novel pairing of anti-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon with Marxist-Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, Zahi Zalloua explores the ways both thinkers expose the violence of political structures. This inventive exploration...

The Penguin Modern Classics edition of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor is translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, with an introduction by Neal Ascherton. After the deposition of Haile...

The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk with over $1 billion in gold and silver-and one man's obsessive quest to find it-from the Sunday Times bestselling...

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an ambitious masterwork of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of international capitalism. In this classic book, Rodney makes...

In her captivating memoir Through the Leopard's Gaze , Njambi McGrath details the harrowing circumstances of her life as a young girl in Kenya, who one fateful night was beaten...

The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi has been one of the twenty-first century's defining moments: the Arab world's most bizarre dictator brought down by his own people with the aid of...

Consent to the obliteration of Gaza has created an enormous gulf in the global moral order. History will record how Western governments and large sections of their elites have supported...

Rome - Urbs Roma : city of patricians and plebeians, emperors and gladiators, slaves and concubines - was the epicentre of a far-flung imperium whose cultural legacy is incalculable. How...

The Great Wall of China - stretching from the arid rises of Gansu province to the cold waters of the Bohai Sea - remains an enduring symbol of Chinese might....

In this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aisha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences. Azoulay argues...

Winner of the African Photobook of the Year Award A Choice Outstanding Title of the Year A USA Today "Must-Read for Black History Month" An NPR "Goats and Soda" Editors'...

Violence was a constant on all colonial frontiers, from the British expansion into the Australian and African continents, to the expansion of the United States and the Napoleonic Empire's many...

"[A] vivid travelogue." New Statesman "Has much to offer." The Spectator "Sparks the imagination." BBC History Magazine "A fascinating study." BBC History Revealed Magazine "Essential reading." All About History "Valiant,...

From Jamaica to Charleston, Sierra Leone to Bombay, China to Australia, back to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, this is the story of the heiresses. Their assets, the product of...

A compendium of fascinating and evocative new writing on railway travel and history. Telling of little known journeys and uncovered histories on railway routes around the world - from the...

The birth of new nations, independent democracies, the defeat of settler colonialism, the unprecedented growth of cities from Lagos to Cairo; the African continent is booming. So why do myths...

'I was so thirsty for the prize of academia, so thrilled to defy the fates, that I suffocated my own history and culture, my Burmese heritage and my mother's language....

It is estimated up to 100,000 people died in the frontier wars that raged across Australia for more than 150 years. This is equivalent to the combined total of all...

A sophisticated publication dedicated to one of the most astonishing collections of African art. This book presents a variety of ritual figures from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Figurative sculpture...

"An engaging romp." - New York Times Book Review "A haunting, quietly devastating excavation of a story we should all know but don't: how a surfing legend became the target...

Silver Medal winner in Military History Matters 'Book of the Year' Award "Written with great accuracy, detail, enthusiasm, and insight " Military History Matters judges' comment Striking where the enemy...

An important reckoning with Australia's unspoken history of slave trade. From the author of the bestselling books The Ballad of Abdul Wade and The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli As Australia...

First time in Modern Classics for Penelope Lively's evocative memoir of her childhood in Egypt. This autobiography is about growing up in Egypt. It is also an investigation into childhood...

'This is a very personal book, about being alone and lost'. In 1975 Kapuscinski's employers sent him to Angola to cover the civil war that had broken out after independence....

A fierce and moving account of the genocide practised by the Spanish colonialists Bartolome de Las Casas was the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World....

New to Black Classics from 20th C. (0141181001) 'Poetry, always foremost of the arts in traditional Africa, has continued to compete for primacy against the newer forms of prose fiction...

' Riveting. This highly readable and entertaining book ... finally sets the record straight on the history of the Koh-i-Noor ' Tarquin Hall, Sunday Times ' Dynamic, original and supremely...

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED FOR...

'Written in gorgeous, sparse prose, We Survived the Night reads like a novel. [...] A book I've been waiting my whole life to read.' Tommy Orange, author of There ThereAs...

'A searing, nourishing journey through a history the world needs' - Bettany Hughes, bestselling author of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World 'Please read it!' - Philippa Gregory, bestselling...

To the colonized, the term 'research' is conflated with European colonialism; the ways in which academic research has been implicated in the throes of imperialism remains a painful memory. This...

The devastation of 7 October 2023 and the horrors that followed astounded the world. But the Israel-Palestine conflict didn't start on 7 October. It didn't start in 1967 either, when...

In 1917, deep in the snowy mountains of occupied Korea, an impoverished local hunter on the brink of starvation saves a young Japanese officer from an attacking tiger. In an...

A fresh and penetrating exploration of South Africa's history, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present "I did not think it was possible for a...

From award-winning booze correspondent Henry Jeffreys comes this rich and full-bodied history of Britain and the Empire, told through the improbable but true stories of how the world's favourite alcoholic...

A landmark work of American literature, If Beale Street Could Talk is a tender yet devastating love story set against the harsh realities of racial injustice in 1970s New York...

The first new translation in over 400 years of one of the great works of the Renaissance- an African diplomat's guide to Africa In 1518, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, a...

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and artist Juanita Londono, this lyrical celebration of the first day of school across every continent explores what going back to...

Spend 24 hours with the inhabitants of the most powerful kingdom in the ancient world. Ancient Egypt wasn't all pyramids, sphinxes and gold sarcophagi. For your average Egyptian, life was...

Alone in an ethnographic museum in Paris, Gabriela Wiener is confronted with her unusual inheritance. She is visiting an exhibition of pre-Columbian artefacts, the spoils of European colonial plunder, many...

From the 2023 David Unaipon Award winner comes this powerful, poignant poetry collection that celebrates and reclaims Indigenous voices and language. Writing with a tender love for her Yugambeh language,...